The Lion King is another remake of a Disney animated classic this time 1994’s The Lion King gets this treatment and this time Jon Favreau takes the directors chair with a style similar to his 2016 version of the Jungle Book, the story however remains the same Simba (JD McReary and Donald Glover) is destined to be king but his evil uncle Scar (Chiewetel Ejiofor) plots to take the throne which sends Simba into exile but the once and future king cannot ignore his destiny forever.
This new version of the Lion King starts off very well and I mean very well with a recreation of the famous opening the Circle of Life that will get even the most hardened cynic of this version on board with it as it looks stunning with realistic animal animation and no dialogue and part of me did get very emotional during that opening recreation.
But as for the rest of the movie well here is where the problems begin as outside of that opening where the animals aren’t asked to emote in any way the rest of the movie requires this and you go from a stunning recreation to a miserable failure as in going for this very realistic style of animal animation it limits their ability to have expressive human like faces where they can properly emote like they can in the animated film and as a result you end up feeling very little while watching this movie.
And emotion was the name of the game when it comes to the 1994 original be it the songs like I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, Be Prepared or Can You Feel the Love Tonight? To the famous Wilderbeest Stampede to the Mufasa Cloud scene, one scene after another where you really feel this strong connection to these animals on the Savannah that is almost completely gone as there is zero expression on the faces and the voice actors have to do that much more work with their vocals.
And there is where I want to go next firstly James Earl Jones sounds flat this time as Mufasa and I hope he is in good health (He’s currently 88) but much like in Rogue One he was sounding also a little frail, Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are okay as Timon and Pumbaa but they really just end up imitating Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella while Donald Glover is terrible as the older Simba just sounding bored the whole bloody time as if he’s above this voice over crap.
As for Ms Beyonce well I felt she was wasted as Nala, her role is barely expanded upon from the original film and again sounds flat while her song Spirit feels very out of place on the soundtrack and one of my big big concerns for this new version Mr Ejiofor as the new Scar is actually okay and certainly equips himself much better than Mr Kenzari did as the new Jafar in the recent Aladdin but also like Mr Kenzari he just cannot hold a candle to Jeremy Irons from the original.
And look this new version of the Lion King much like May’s Aladdin and the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast are not bad movies but their also just very very very bland each and every one of them and look if you’re a fan your going to go and see this new version regardless and I won’t step in the way but its also just nowhere the original film and I hope neither of these live action remakes become the default versions, 2 out of 5.
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Film Review - Stuber (2019)
Stuber stars Kumail Nanjiani as Stu, an Uber driver by night who also works at a Sporting Goods store, he likes to get 5 star ratings mainly to keep his driving job but one day he picks up Vic (Dave Bautista) who is on the trail of a Drug trafficker in LA but Stu gets caught up in the action and the chase is on.
Stuber is a fun movie, I had a good time while I was watching it and I did laugh a fair amount, firstly Mr Bautista and Mr Nanjiani have good chemistry and play off each other very well not only in terms of their comedy timing but also how they represent the various sides of manhood and how its expressed which I thought was a pretty interesting idea.
And also I really enjoyed seeing Ms Karen Gillan appear briefly in this movie but sadly it is all too brief and it’s a real shame as I love her as Nebula in the Marvel Studios movies and she deserves to have a large role in a movie outside of the makeup she wears as Nebula and also she does a great American accent.
But there are also times where the action and comedy elements don’t quite gel together, firstly the action at times is way too overedited to the point where it is hard to follow who is fighting who in the scenes and its disappointing because you want to see Dave fight in those scenes.
And secondly one of the jokes regarding his character doesn’t really work very well, it’s fun for about a scene or two but after multiple scenes I got a bit tired of it.
But that aside Stuber is a fun ride that’s worth taking and that’s my 3 star rating.
Stuber is a fun movie, I had a good time while I was watching it and I did laugh a fair amount, firstly Mr Bautista and Mr Nanjiani have good chemistry and play off each other very well not only in terms of their comedy timing but also how they represent the various sides of manhood and how its expressed which I thought was a pretty interesting idea.
And also I really enjoyed seeing Ms Karen Gillan appear briefly in this movie but sadly it is all too brief and it’s a real shame as I love her as Nebula in the Marvel Studios movies and she deserves to have a large role in a movie outside of the makeup she wears as Nebula and also she does a great American accent.
But there are also times where the action and comedy elements don’t quite gel together, firstly the action at times is way too overedited to the point where it is hard to follow who is fighting who in the scenes and its disappointing because you want to see Dave fight in those scenes.
And secondly one of the jokes regarding his character doesn’t really work very well, it’s fun for about a scene or two but after multiple scenes I got a bit tired of it.
But that aside Stuber is a fun ride that’s worth taking and that’s my 3 star rating.
Monday, July 1, 2019
Film Review - Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the newest Marvel Studios production this time with Columbia Pictures instead of Walt Disney Pictures and is also the first movie to come after Avengers: Endgame where Peter Parker (Tom Holland) simply wants a nice Vacation after the events of the Thanos 2 parter where he can have fun, be with his chums and tell MJ (Zendaya) how he really feels about her, but when Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) calls on his help in regards to Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) he has to don the Spidey suit once again.
Far From Home is an okay movie for me, it’s one of those where I feel that it certainly isn’t bad but it’s also one where I’m not wanting to go out and rave about it like I did Endgame or Dragon Ball Super: Broly or Rocketman which are my top 3 of the year so far, no this one just swings the webs along nice enough and I was happy for the most part.
And a large part of that is down to Mr Gyllenhaal as Mysterio, this character is one of my favorite villains from the Spider-Man comics and the animated series from the 1990s and my dream casting for this role has been Bryan Brown mainly due to the 1986 movie FX Murder by Illusion where he played Rollie Tyler a Special Effects expert who goes on the run after a suspected murder goes bad but Jake does good justice to the character and a lot of the action sequences involving him were a lot of fun.
Also Mr Holland is now very comfortable playing Peter and Spider-Man and does a great job with both roles after his somewhat finding his feet on the cobweb performance he showed at times in Homecoming back in 2017, I enjoyed seeing Ms Angourie Rice who was very good in Ladies in Black an underrated movie from last year get a bigger role while Zendaya is much better this time around as MJ with some nice hints to her backstory from previous movies and the animated series.
But alas this movie has 2 big drawbacks for me:
- Firstly the film is simply too long, its about 2 hours and 10 minutes and there were times where the film dragged at that length for me, I think if it lost a good 10 to 15 minutes I probably would’ve enjoyed the film a fair bit more.
- And Secondly I really didn’t like a lot of the films humour, a lot of the timing just fell face first in the mud for me and the way the jokes play out in an editorial sense it just felt like they dragged on those gags for too long and it stopped being funny and I can tell to a certain extent when comedy doesn’t work very well for me and here it didn’t after a while and I got a bit sick of it at the end.
Lastly the 3rd act climax is pretty underwhelming now I won’t elaborate on that too much but I will say that it could’ve been a whole lot better and more visually inspiring.
And so that was Spider-Man: Far From Home and its okay, it’s a fun time but if it wasn’t for Mysterio being done really well I don’t think I would’ve liked it all that much in all honesty, 2 and a half out of 5.
Far From Home is an okay movie for me, it’s one of those where I feel that it certainly isn’t bad but it’s also one where I’m not wanting to go out and rave about it like I did Endgame or Dragon Ball Super: Broly or Rocketman which are my top 3 of the year so far, no this one just swings the webs along nice enough and I was happy for the most part.
And a large part of that is down to Mr Gyllenhaal as Mysterio, this character is one of my favorite villains from the Spider-Man comics and the animated series from the 1990s and my dream casting for this role has been Bryan Brown mainly due to the 1986 movie FX Murder by Illusion where he played Rollie Tyler a Special Effects expert who goes on the run after a suspected murder goes bad but Jake does good justice to the character and a lot of the action sequences involving him were a lot of fun.
Also Mr Holland is now very comfortable playing Peter and Spider-Man and does a great job with both roles after his somewhat finding his feet on the cobweb performance he showed at times in Homecoming back in 2017, I enjoyed seeing Ms Angourie Rice who was very good in Ladies in Black an underrated movie from last year get a bigger role while Zendaya is much better this time around as MJ with some nice hints to her backstory from previous movies and the animated series.
But alas this movie has 2 big drawbacks for me:
- Firstly the film is simply too long, its about 2 hours and 10 minutes and there were times where the film dragged at that length for me, I think if it lost a good 10 to 15 minutes I probably would’ve enjoyed the film a fair bit more.
- And Secondly I really didn’t like a lot of the films humour, a lot of the timing just fell face first in the mud for me and the way the jokes play out in an editorial sense it just felt like they dragged on those gags for too long and it stopped being funny and I can tell to a certain extent when comedy doesn’t work very well for me and here it didn’t after a while and I got a bit sick of it at the end.
Lastly the 3rd act climax is pretty underwhelming now I won’t elaborate on that too much but I will say that it could’ve been a whole lot better and more visually inspiring.
And so that was Spider-Man: Far From Home and its okay, it’s a fun time but if it wasn’t for Mysterio being done really well I don’t think I would’ve liked it all that much in all honesty, 2 and a half out of 5.
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